Yet another creatine question: How fast does creatine turn into creatinine?

Can it be mixed in my PWO drink, sit in my car for 2 hours while I'm sweat humping men in my BJJ class, and be alright to drink afterwards? Or should I just leave it (and my other PWO crap) in powder form and mix it with water afterwards in my shaker bottle?

Can it be mixed in my PWO drink, sit in my car for 2 hours while I'm sweat humping men in my BJJ class, and be alright to drink afterwards? Or should I just leave it (and my other PWO crap) in powder form and mix it with water afterwards in my shaker bottle?

I think the general consensus is to leave it in powdered form until you are ready to drink it.

But you do bring up an interesting question on the degradation time; I believe either Madmick or KK posted on this a while back, and it took "days" for a creatine mix to completely break down. Throwing "creatinine" into the Sherdog search brings up zip.

They may be some breakdown over two hours, but I can't see it being much. I'll see if I can actually dig up some numbers.

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IIRC the process of creatine converting to creatinine in a liquid is pretty slow. So don't mix a weeks worth of creatine on sunday since by friday some of it may be creatinine.

Creatinine isn't toxic at all. Its freely filtered in the kidneys so it doesn't stress them at all. The reason why people think its toxic is that if you have a lot of it in your urine and you aren't an athlete and you aren't taking creatine that can be a sign of failing kidneys. But larger, more muscular people and people supplementing creatine naturally have higher levels and its fine.

Also creatinine is just waste, so it doesn't "contaminate" your shake or anything. 3% creatinine in your shake won't make any difference. 20% won't make any difference either. If you are that concerned about it, just add a tiny bit more. Then if 20% of your 6 grams of creatine converts, you still have a good amount left.

I believe either Madmick or KK posted on this a while back, and it took "days" for a creatine mix to completely break down.

LoL, I'm fairly certain you posted a link to something as well. I remember finding a source that said it would take about 1-2 days to have significant degradation. Iím fairly sure in that same thread you found a source that mentioned it could be even longer... But I can't recall the exact time or find the thread.

Cool post by RJ though. Bottom line seems to be... it doesn't make sense to mix the creatine until you have to. But if you need to mix it a couple of hours in advance that's not an issue either.